Clearing Streams Keeps County Busy As Beavers

A fallen tree may be part of nature`s continuing process of rejuvenating the environment, but it could spell disaster for home and business owners in flood-prone parts of Du Page County.

Dead trees often tumble into the county`s streams, inviting beavers to use the trunk and limbs as the framework for a new dam. And Du Page already has beaver dams aplenty, contributing to the flooding problem.

In addition, county officials say people are dumping everything from automobile engines to grass clippings into the streams, adding to flooding and erosion.

In the last year, the county has conducted pilot cleanup programs on parts of five streams in Du Page County totaling 7.8 miles at a cost of $754,900. Based on that work, the Department of Environmental Concerns is asking for $16.6 million to do the rest of the county.

The Du Page Stormwater Management Committee held a public hearing Dec. 21 on the proposal for a full-scale cleanup operation, and the County Board is scheduled to vote on it April 23, along with a far-reaching stormwater and flood plain ordinance.

Randolph J. Stowe, a consultant based in Harvard in McHenry County who worked with Du Page on the pilot cleanup, said that effort made the county

``realize the magnitude of the problem elsewhere.``

``We`re trying to let people know that it`s not appropriate to do what has been done in the past`` in using streams as dumps, Stowe said.

``You cannot look at long-term flooding solutions if the drainage network is not working,`` he said. ``If the streams are clogged with debris and not allowed to function, you cannot design storm-water management facilities. You have to get back to their natural function and see how they respond.``

The streams receive not only rain runoff but storm sewer and sewage treatment plant outflow.

As with any multimillion-dollar plan, there are political and economic considerations to be addressed. Aldo Botti, County Board chairman, said the stream cleanup proposal ``has not been brought to my attention.`` But he added, ``I do not know who would pay for it and if it is proper.``

Ross Hill, an official of the Du Page Forest Preserve District, notes that stream cleaning is ``a continuous problem: Once you clean it up, it`s soon back to where it was.``

A major hurdle in cleaning streams is to get easements from private-property owners to cross their land. A county report said: ``The pilot program included some of the most debris-impacted stream reaches (sections) in the county. Many of the landowners on these reaches, who would have the most to gain by having the stream-maintenance program conducted on their stream, could not be persuaded to sign an easement.``

A major landowner along Du Page`s waterways is the Forest Preserve District. Jack Kunath, the official in charge of trail and stream maintenance for that agency, said he has a full-time crew doing such work and another crew is added during the summer. Out of the streams have come such items as 30-foot-long telephone poles, construction lumber, tractor tires, clothes washers and dryers and automobile engines and parts, Kunath said.

Stowe said that ``many local flooding problems are attributable to a localized debris jam. In the Salt Creek basin, obviously debris jams are not causing all the flooding but they are a definite factor to be considered.``

He said beavers have been found ``on virtually every stream in the county . . . creating dams from streamside vegetation they cut down.``

Another problem, he said, stems from people dumping grass clippings on banks, which kills the vegetation underneath. When rains come, the clippings wash into the stream, adding unwelcome nutrients, and the now-bare ground starts to wash away.

On the East Du Page River, a debris jam produced ``backwater that was beginning to interfere with the ability of the Woodridge Wastewater Treatment Plant to discharge treated effluent into the river,`` the county report stated.

The report said: ``An incident as simple as the falling of a tree can initiate a chain of events that can significantly impair the future ability of the stream to function in an efficient and predictable manner.``